Many bridging protocols, such as Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol, may be designed to work on point-to-point (p2p) links. In Ethernet networks, such links may be “full duplex” which means there are two p2p channels between a transmitter and a receiver. The station at the ends of the link may be transmitters for one channel and receivers for the other. However, some physical media, such as wireless systems or the use of power lines for data, may inherently be broadcast type media, in which many stations receive the transmission. A broadcast type media may implement a point-to-multipoint (p2 mp) transmission, as opposed to a p2p media where each transmitter is paired with exactly one receiver.
Some multi-access media select a designated station such that stations can communicate with the designated station, but non-designated stations may not be able to communicate with each other. Thus, for reliable receipt of a broadcast message originating at a non-designated station, for example, the message may be unicast to the designation station, which then broadcasts it to other stations. An Access Point (AP) configured to implement an Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 protocol (e.g., Wi-Fi) is an example of such a designated station. A large number of products including home entertainment systems and industrial control equipment that have both an IEEE 802.11 wireless station capability and a wired IEEE 802.3 Ethernet capability. IEEE 802.11 has a media operating in the gigabit per second range and has standardized security and quality of service improvements. As such, IEEE 802.11 links may be used as transit links inside a wireless network, and not just as a path to an end station at the end of a network. Additional information for an IEEE 802.11 wireless network may be as described in the IEEE 802.11 standard titled, “Part 11: Wireless local area network (LAN) Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications,” and additional information for an Ethernet network may be as described in the IEEE 802.3 standard titled, “IEEE Standard for Ethernet,” both of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if reproduced in their entirety.
Transmitting multi-destination frames from an AP using the communication between an IEEE 802.11 AP and its associated station as a set of p2p transit link may be challenging. For example, when implementing a spanning tree or the like, an arbitrary sub-set of stations may receive the frame and the frame may not be sent back to the sender (e.g., reflection problem). Also, the frame may comprise different virtual local access networks (VLAN) identifier and/or other tagging identifiers to forward the frame to different stations. Some conventional networks may broadcast messages as a sequence of unicast messages to their intended recipients. However, the broadcast link may be blocked for other transmissions during each of the multiple unicast transmissions, which may result in significant channel blocking. Other conventional systems may use a designated station on a broadcast media link to configure other stations on that broadcast link by sending commands to other stations so as to control which other stations should receive messages. This may require a protocol between the designation station and every other station so that the designation station can receive confirmation that such commands were correctly received and have taken effect. Otherwise, the behavior of a station may be uncertain and transmissions to the station may need to be delayed or handled differently. Other conventional networks may use an encoded address label to address the intended recipients, but this may limit the number of addressable receivers.